Only Trouble Blooms For Quebec Premier

April 25, 1985|By Janet Cawley, Chicago Tribune.

QUEBEC CITY — Premier Rene Levesque, who captured worldwide attention by leading his separatist party to power in this French-speaking province nine years ago, appears to be in deep political trouble this spring.

Questions about his leadership have plagued the 62-year-old premier for months. His support has sagged in the polls, his Parti Quebecois has been wracked by internal divisions and recently his own behavior has become noticeably erratic, leading to speculation he might have serious health problems.

Levesque and his government got the latest dose of bad news from a poll taken in early April. It showed 53 percent of the Quebec electorate favoring the opposition Liberal Party, with only 28 percent saying they would vote for the Parti Quebecois.

The news came as Levesque was wrestling with the most immediate question he faces: when to call the next provincial election. Although he can by law stay in office another year, speculation has centered on an early summer or fall vote. Levesque, in a series of seemingly conflicting statements, has hinted at both dates within recent weeks.

``He`s been up and down, back and forth on this for the last couple months,`` said a longtime Quebec journalist. ``In one breath he says he doesn`t preclude a summer election, then he turns around and says no. There`s something wrong with that man.``

After the poll was released last week, Levesque indicated he favored a fall date, apparently on the theory his ratings might improve by then. But there also has been betting that he may take the unusual step of filling out the entire five years of his mandate and hang on until next year.

It has been a year of wrenching changes for the chain-smoking, white-haired premier. Last fall he announced he wanted the Parti Quebecois, which he helped found 16 years ago on a platform of an independent Quebec, to shelve separatism as an issue in the next provincial election.

In January, he persuaded a majority of the delegates at a special party convention to go along with him, but not before 500 hard-line delegates walked out, claiming he had sold out the party`s principles. Two months later, the dissidents formed their own political movement with the support and leadership of some of his former Cabinet members and closest friends.

Even some members of the provincial legislature who stayed within the party reportedly grew restive. According to one newspaper report, as many as a dozen unnamed members of the legislature said they would not run again if Levesque stayed on as party leader. Levesque dismissed the report as

``completely inane.``

Fueling all the speculation has been Levesque`s repeatedly odd behavior, first noted publicly last fall when the premier behaved strangely in the National Assembly. Among other things, he appeared in the legislative chamber with a lighted cigarette, in violation of all building rules. He gave rambling, incoherent replies to opposition questions, in several cases even forgetting the question before he could finish answering.

Levesque subsequently went to the Caribbean for a rest, but cut the vacation short. After returning to Quebec City, he checked into a hospital for what he made a point of saying was his first physical check-up since World War II.

Doctors pronounced him fit, but his behavior on public occasions continued to be erratic. He made a disparaging remark about a young Canadian Olympic athlete. He joked about the shape of Chinese eyes. Last month he raised still more eyebrows when he went to New York and complained about his treatment at the ``Shamrock summit`` between President Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Quebec City.

Referring to the Irish connection between the two leaders, Levesque told an audience of American business leaders, ``Since we couldn`t for love or money, not one of us, pretend to one single drop of that noble Irish blood, well, inevitably and I suppose justifiably, we were made to feel a bit like muzhiks (Russian peasants) of old when czars and emperors used to parade through Moscow.``

Shortly after that, Levesque again hit the news when he offered a cigarette to a handicapped 4-year-old boy at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

There has been a certain amount of speculation that Levesque, always something of an offbeat character, has come in for such intense public scrutiny lately that what previously might have been ignored or written off as a lapse in taste is now held as evidence that he is sometimes not in full control.

Richard French, an opposition Liberal member of the provincial legislature, said that since Levesque`s ``bad patch`` before Christmas, ``he`s done a lot of things he could have done before with impunity. But now people notice.``

Levesque insists his health is fine, and occasionally he even jokes with reporters about their newly intense interest in his every move.

But French said his impression is that Levesque ``looks sometimes rather odd, not natural. It`s as if he`s carrying himself to protect against exposing himself.``